Charity & Non-Profit Website Hosting

Havenswift Hosting are pleased to offer large discounts, and in many cases completely free hosting, to registered charities, non-profit organisations, voluntary organisations and community groups.

Fifty per cent is the standard and minimum discount we offer to every accepted organisation against any of our shared hosting packages, and in some cases we provide the hosting entirely free of charge. We are also happy to give help and advice on developing your website, or on any other service, again at greatly reduced cost or at no cost at all.

All we ask in return is a small, discreet link from the homepage of your website back to ours, recognising that we have supported your organisation.

Why we do this

Small organisations doing useful work are often the ones least able to afford decent hosting, and are frequently the ones stuck on whatever a well meaning volunteer set up several years ago. Moving that to something maintained, backed up and properly secured usually costs very little, and it removes a risk that most committees do not know they are carrying.

We have been doing this since 2007. It is not a marketing programme with a cap and an application window, it is simply something we do, and several of the organisations below have been with us for more than a decade.

Who qualifies

We are deliberately broad about this. You do not need to be a registered charity, and there is no minimum size.

Registered charities, of any size
Non-profit and voluntary organisations without charitable registration
Community groups, village and parish websites, residents’ associations and friends-of groups
Churches and places of worship
Support groups, including those run informally by the people they support
Amateur societies such as drama groups, choirs, historical societies and sports clubs

What we look for is simply that the organisation is genuinely not-for-profit and that the website serves its members or its community rather than a commercial interest. If you are not sure whether you would qualify, ask.

What is included

Accepted organisations receive the same service as any other customer, not a stripped down version of it.

cPanel, with one click installation for WordPress and other common applications
Free SSL certificates, issued and renewed automatically
Email on your own domain, with spam filtering and correctly configured SPF and DKIM records
Daily backups that you can restore yourself
Support answered by the people who run the servers
Free migration of your existing website

Why hosting matters more for a small organisation than people think

A charity website is rarely just a brochure. It takes donations, holds contact details for volunteers, publishes safeguarding and privacy policies, and is often the first thing a worried person finds when they search for help at eleven o’clock at night. Three things follow from that.

It has to be up. Trustees are usually the last people to hear that the site is down, because nobody is watching it. We monitor the servers, and if something is wrong you will normally hear it from us first.

It has to be secure. An out of date WordPress installation is compromised by an automated scanner, not by anyone who has singled you out, and the usual result is that your domain starts sending spam or serving malware to your own supporters. Free SSL, current PHP versions and daily backups turn that from a crisis into an inconvenience.

Somebody has to be able to take it over. The most common problem we see is not technical at all. It is that the volunteer who built the site five years ago has moved away, nobody knows who the domain is registered to, and the hosting renews on a card that has expired. Putting the domain and the hosting in the organisation’s name, with more than one committee member able to reach us, costs nothing and prevents the worst outcome we see.

WordPress for charities

Most of the organisations we host run WordPress, and it is what we would suggest for a new site. It can be installed in one click from cPanel, there are free and inexpensive themes designed for charities, and the important part is that it can be updated by a volunteer with no technical background rather than requiring a developer for every change.

If you are taking donations, plugins are available for the major UK donation platforms, and we are happy to advise on which route causes the least trouble for a small organisation. If you would rather not run WordPress at all, that is fine too, and a plain HTML site is perfectly acceptable and considerably easier to keep secure.

Accessibility and privacy

A charity website has a stronger obligation than most to be usable by everyone, and often a legal one. We will point out obvious accessibility problems when we see them, such as unlabelled images, poor colour contrast or text baked into graphics.

On privacy, our servers are in the United Kingdom, we can set up correctly configured contact forms that do not leak submissions, and we will help you get an accurate privacy policy in place if you do not have one.

How to apply

If you would like to apply, please contact us with the following:

Your name
Your address
Your email address
Your contact telephone number
The charity or organisation name
Your registered charity number, if applicable
Your chosen domain name, and whether you already own it or need it registered
Your choice of hosting package
If you have an existing website, what system it uses and whether you would like help transferring it to us

Domains and migration

We are unable to register or renew domains free of charge, but we will help you register a new one or transfer the management of any domains you already own so that everything sits in one place.

We will usually provide free advice on moving an existing website across, and in almost every case we will do the work free as well. If your current site is on an old platform or has been neglected for a while, tell us and we will look at it honestly before anything is moved.

Migrations follow the same process as for any other customer. We copy the site across and get it working on our servers, you test it on a temporary address, and DNS only changes when you are satisfied. The existing site stays live throughout, so there is no point at which your organisation is offline.

What happens next

We respond as quickly as we can, usually within 24 hours, with details of how to proceed if your application is accepted following some initial verification checks.

Common questions

Do we have to be a registered charity? No. Plenty of the organisations we host are community groups and voluntary associations with no registration at all.

Is the discount only for the first year? No. It applies for as long as you are with us, and it is not a promotional rate that quietly reverts.

What if our website needs more than a basic package later? Tell us and we will move you up. The discount applies to whichever package you are on.

We already have a website somewhere else. Is it worth moving? Usually yes, and the move itself is free. If it is not worth moving we will say so.

Can you help us build the site as well? We will give advice free, and where we can help practically we usually do. While we are primarily hosting specialists, we also do a lot of design and development work and usually develop any type of website that you are looking for or offer advice if you are having problems.